


Reunion: Too (2) Far

by BecauseBoomerangs



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Drugs, Explicit Language, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Suicide, One Shot, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Original Male Character(s) - Freeform, Outer Space, Reunions, Science Fiction, Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BecauseBoomerangs/pseuds/BecauseBoomerangs
Summary: Two lonely adults rekindle a friendship after bumping into each other in a bar on EOS-8. They haven't talked for several solar revolutions due to each living on a different planet, but they get desperate.
Relationships: Qadira/Xenon





	Reunion: Too (2) Far

**Author's Note:**

> The original work was written in a google doc with footnotes at the bottom of the page. Now they are in italics and parentheses near the corresponding text, because I don't want to annoy you with scrolling. However, they are optional. I'm sorry about the formatting.

Teal and pink neon lights snaked through the sides of the dimly lit bar. Tucked away in the least populated quadrant of the space station, the grungy dive bar attracted the wretched and the poor, the criminal and the corporate, but mostly the casual civilian who scrounged enough for an Airbnb in the neighbourhood. Living in space ain’t cheap. Besides, beer is beer. Alcohol is universally welcomed, well, until it’s spiked with Heat-47, a powerful hypnotic that turns into an amnesic aphrodisiac then ultraviolent insanity in its victims.

_(_ _It’s favoured by serial rapists and rich men for the two hours of guaranteed unconsciousness to transport the body to the soon-to-be crime scene and later murder scene; the murder charge almost certainly gets changed to manslaughter or less, including 6 months maximum of community service and a sealed criminal record, thanks to daddy’s connections. The rapists get away, like they always do, by claiming self defense as the victim goes berserk, impervious to reason and pain. One viral video on the DarkNet captured a teenage girl, most likely drugged with Heat-47, on top of a man beating him into submission with her bloodied arm stumps severed at just above the elbow. Eventually, he managed to shoot his pocket blaster and disintegrate her.)_

The noisy chatter of patrons masked the clinking and sloshing of drinks. Qadira had walked out of her rental room without applying deodorant and sat at the bar, looking to be left alone after a tiring day of work. Ironically, her place of business often coincided with her place of rest. By day, she oversaw the manufacture of laser weapons at the Mars flagship factory. By night, she sold stolen guns from her day job on the black market, primarily to smugglers and pirates who sold them marked up to anonymous customers in the outer reaches of space. The extra credits she earned allowed her to spend on protection like the Heat-47 detector stick that tested for the notorious drug. She swirled the stick aimlessly in her now-flat fluorescent orange drink even after the indicator light turned green for negative presence of Heat-47. Her metal straw got buried in some tough guy’s eye and brain matter after he got too close on one of the business deals. She grumbled remembering how one of her business partners said they would take care of it and she wondered what favour they expected in return. 

Xenon sat on the stool beside the woman with the studded nose ring and half-shaved black hair that revealed an industrial ear piercing. He raised a finger, “Barkeep, one Cerulean Ale please.” The barkeeper off-handedly glanced at him and slid the bubbling blue drink towards him without a word. His hands clasped the cool and inevitably dirty glass as he peered into his sapphire-tinted reflection: short platinum blond hair and green eyes with implants. He turned the micro-computers off with a glance to the right, not bothering with the world news on his feed. A vaguely familiar face in his peripheral vision caught his attention. 

“Qadira?” 

The tall woman looked around at him and took a few seconds to identify him, “Xenon?” 

Xenon nodded, “Yeah. It’s surprising to see you here.”   
“Surprising how?” She inquired.  
“I don’t know. Out of all of the places in the universe you could be, you happen to sit beside me.”   
“I’m here for business...on the Moon,” she explained. “What brought you to EOS-8?” Not many people visit EOS-8, the space station orbiting the Moon. The only attraction was the jailhouse food tourism that originates from the largest minimum-security private prison on the Moon. Paco Corp entered a government contract to house prisoners and turn a profit by setting them to work in the titanium mines. 

“Uh… food tourism. Everyone was telling me that Conman’s ramen burrito is delicious,” Xenon fumbled for an excuse. He hadn’t spoken to anyone at the station yet except the station docking official to whom he gave the same answer.   
“Cool. How have you been? What do you do now? It’s been so long… like 5 solar revolutions.”   
More than 5 revolutions ago, they went to the same college, but after they graduated, they lost the one thing they had in common—living in the same dorm, which is pretty pathetic.   
“Yeah. I’ve been good. I’m a cybersecurity analyst working on Weveben-3 on Earth. Real shame we didn’t keep in touch. Understandable with the distance and stuff. What do you do?”   
“I manage and manufacture laser weapons on Mars, but I guess they’re moving me here. Distance... yeah,” Qadira looked down. They lived in the same galaxy on planets relatively close to the other yet they didn’t even bother to send a holo-message.   
“I’m sure something came up.” Xenon sipped his drink, “We were quite close before. I missed you.” Qadira’s eyes perked up.  
“You did? I was a snarky lil bitch back then. I still am now. Haha.”

  
“No, you were cute.” Xenon corrected her and smiled. Qadira began to recall how they slowly drifted apart. The time between each conversation grew and grew until neither took the initiative to send a message. Not even for New Revolution. New Revolution texts were funny, because they could take rotations to arrive even with FTL (Faster Than Light) technology and it depended on the galaxies both parties were in.  
“Thanks. You too. I miss you a lot, but you probably have other people at home who miss you.”  
“No, I haven’t. My love life has been quite lacklustre. I haven’t met someone I clicked with.”   
“Same. I feel like I’ve never been in an adult relationship. I was in just one, because I liked having them around. I never thought about living with them forever; it was always in the moment.” Qadira turned 90 degrees to face Xenon. “And I already know you as a friend. I might as well fast-forward on this phase of my life where I just sleep around. So, do you want to have kids together? Live on EOS-8. There’s nothing holding you back on Earth. You could easily get a cybersecurity job here.”

Xenon froze—speechless and shocked at Qadira’s proposal. He stumbled on his words.

“Um... Is that wise?” 

The optimism in Qadira’s face drained as she regretted her bold move. “When have I ever been wise, Xenon? You tell me.”   
Xenon knew the main ingredient in the recipe for disaster in his relationships. He was afraid that he made the wrong choice investing all this time into that person. What if one day they suddenly lose interest and disappear? z  
“I’ve always liked your confidence.”  
“I like your honesty.”  
Xenon suppressed a snicker. He actually came to EOS-8 to infect the Android guards on the Moon with the malware he coded, so he could sneak past them into the prison and die in a brawl. Deadly brawls were regular enough that it wouldn’t get catch anyone’s suspicion. He didn’t have the guts to kill himself, so he came up with this elaborate plan.  
"I could continue for the whole night.” She teased.  
“I wouldn’t mind hearing more about yourself.” Xenon followed the one piece of flirting advice that stuck with him: say what they want to hear—most girls, especially Qadira, love talking about themselves.

_(In fact, Qadira adored how Xenon would actively listen to her rants about school or whatever minor annoyances in her life. It was like therapy when she couldn’t afford it as a student. He knew almost everything going on within Qadira’s life in their second month of knowing each other. They would holo-chat for hours.)_

It was borderline manipulation, but it kept his mind occupied from the soul-sucking void in himself and it steadied his serotonin levels.

“Well... I feel better than before. After cutting off my family for 5 years, I realized how toxic they were. There were never any spoons in my house. Only forks. My family are like forks. My parents never hugged me. I think I learned to fear intimacy, because I couldn’t get too close or I would get hurt. If you wanted to drink soup, you had to drink it from the bowl and look like an idiot when you got it all over yourself. It was so hard to get any warmth in that house. My addiction to alcohol probably stems from that too; I craved the burn.” Qadira sighed then pushed her drink away from her as if it were poison.

She continued her metaphor, “Their prongs were like bars in a jail cell. I was trapped by their expectations of me. I’m so glad I discovered sporks.” She chuckled. “I can be multifunctional.”  
“Yeah, you could be beautiful, funny, _and_ intelligent.” Xenon placed his hand over Qadira’s.  
“Thanks. I needed that. Life has been … uneventful for lack of a better term. Things happen, just not the type of things I want to happen.”  
“Yeah. My brother died from brain cancer a month ago.” Xenon sighed.   
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry. You had a brother?” Xenon shifted back on his stool.   
“Yeah… I thought I mentioned him before? We were quite close. It hit me hard.” He held his drink and frowned at the thought of all the people that left him.  
“I’m sorry, I must have forgot. Older or younger?” Xenon swiped his hand as a gesture to forget about it.   
“Older. It’s fine.”  
“All right.” Qadira slowly sipped her drink as she watched Xenon fold his arms and slouch. His sullen face and furrowed eyebrows showed he was in pensive thought. 

  
“Do you want to go back to my place?” Qadira suggested, trying to brighten his mood.   
“Sure.” He rubbed his forehead. _I’ll delay the prison hack.  
_“I’ll pay for your drink.” Xenon offered.   
“No no no. It’s fine. I have a business on the side. I have plenty of credits. I’m not even done my drink. I don’t even like it. It’s alcohol. The more I get older, the worse I become when I get drunk. You’ve seen me get ugly drunk sometimes. I’m mean without realizing,” Qadira objected.   
“Please. I haven’t seen you in 5 revolutions. I feel bad for not catching up sooner.” he said.   
“Fine if you insist.” Qadira conceded and looked around the bustling bar, with one elbow on the counter and a smug expression, expecting this to be a turning point in her life. Xenon paid for the bill.

_(_ _She fantasized about not being alone and watching Dark Matter together in their VR capsules side by side, sitting on a virtual couch and leaning on his shoulder virtually. Luckily, there were two VR capsules in Qadira’s Airbnb even though she rented a single bed room. She was about to complain about the space it took up in the tiny urban studio suite and ask the host to remove it, but now she wanted to ask if she could have permanent guests over. The neat thing about VR was that she could mod her appearance and others without them knowing. She planned on putting a sapphire rhodium ring on her left ring finger and pretend she was married to Xenon.)_

Qadira suddenly widened her eyes, “Hoi. You didn’t answer my question earlier. Do you want to have kids together on EOS-8?” She gulped down her drink as she waited for Xenon to respond.   
“Adopted or in vitro?” Xenon joked, playing along with Qadira’s idea.  
“Hey! I’m still young. You think my uterus can’t handle it?”   
“Life expectancy has gone down by 20 solar revolutions these past 5 solar revolutions. You could have cancer or some other disease and be unaware.”  
“I deserve more credit than you give me. I have loads of credits; statistics like those don’t apply for me. I can just buy a new body. I can’t tell you exactly how much or else you will turn into a gold-digger.” Qadira disputed.   
“I doubt your new body could match your current coolness.” Xenon waggled an eyebrow.  
“That’s true. I would have get my tats again.”   
“Oh. Can I see?” He asked, intrigued.  
“Not here.” She winked.  
“I see. Let’s go. Finish your drink.” said Xenon.

  
Qadira removed the Heat-47 detector and drank the remaining orange fluid in one go then grabbed Xenon’s hand and led him out of the bar. The Heat-47 detector indicator light was red—test positive. 

  
  



End file.
